Photo Amber Bobin Director Destin Daniel Cretton with students of the Hisako Film Lab, who screened their work at the Wailuku Film Festival.

Growing up in Haiku, Destin Daniel Cretton fell in love with movie making at a young age. That childhood passion eventually led him to direct the latest Spider-Man epic, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” scheduled for release on July 31.

Returning home for the Wailuku Film Festival, Cretton joined Maui News movie critic Barry Wurst for a “Haiku to Global Cinema” conversation in the Naylor Theatre, and offered an exclusive sneak peek of his upcoming Spider-Man film on Saturday afternoon.

Acclaimed for an array of films including “Short Term 12,” “The Glass Castle,” “Just Mercy,” and the Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” Cretton credits his grandmother with igniting his joy of movie making.

On a family trip to California, she lent him a VHS camcorder.

“There were six kids in my family and we didn’t have a lot of money, but my grandparents were always the ones who would take us on trips,” explained Cretton, who now lives in Los Angeles. “I was in fourth grade at Haiku School and my grandma had a VHS camera, and I started documenting our trip together. We went to Universal Studios, Disneyland, SeaWorld, and the San Diego Zoo. It coincided with my first time being exposed to the way movies were made. At Universal Studios, they kind of show you all the behind the scenes, and at Disneyland, it’s the same thing. I got exposed to the fact that there are human beings making this stuff, and when I got back from that trip, I never gave the video camera back. We started making movies with my siblings in my backyard in Haiku.”

Becoming “more obsessed with the process of capturing things with a video camera,” he learnt how to edit at Akaku and filmed his church camp and friends surfing. “I didn’t have the dream of this is going to be my life, but I knew I loved it,” he said.

Spider-Man movies are the highest-grossing superhero franchise in history, generating over $10 billion globally. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was the highest-grossing film of 2021 with a worldwide box office of $1.921 billion.

One wonders if he read Spider-Man comics as a child?

Photo Amber Bobin
Destin Daniel Cretton in conversation with Barry Wurst at the Wailuku Film Festival.

“I was not really exposed to comics,” Cretton said. “My mom was pretty vigilant in not letting us watch TV, and we weren’t exposed to pop culture very much. I knew about Spider-Man, but I was never a consumer of the comics. But I remember getting my hands on one Spider-Man comic when I was a kid. It was this really old, beat-up issue of this character that I just really gravitated towards. He was the person that I would pretend to be if I was going to choose a superhero. It was always Spider-Man. I have a photo of me and my brother in the yard and he’s got a Hulk shirt and I’ve got a Spidey shirt. There has always been something about that character that I found very relatable.”

With the opportunity to direct “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” he said, “When I first met with the producers and with (actor) Tom Holland about what they were looking for, it allowed me to feel excited about what I could bring to it. What everybody was looking for was a more grounded exploration of this character and the world. Not just grounded in the action design, which is a big part of what we’re aiming for, but also grounded in the emotions and grounded in the emotional journey of Peter Parker.”

In every movie he has made, “I am constantly looking for what is the beating heart of this story that I find really personal? What’s the part of it that makes it feel really intimate and personal? I feel very lucky that was the goal of all of our producers from the get-go. I think people will be surprised at how big it gets, but also surprised at how small and intimate it is at times.”

Cretton felt it was important to tell “a story about rediscovering the importance of community. Peter Parker finds himself in a place that I find really relatable and I think many people in the world will find really relatable. He’s in a city surrounded by millions of people, and somehow he still feels entirely alone. I think we’re in an interesting time where we’re connected to more people than maybe ever before, but something about it doesn’t feel as deep. And it’s very easy to still feel very disconnected from community. That’s the journey that Peter Parker is on. I think it’s been very fulfilling and almost therapeutic to watch Peter go on this journey of rediscovering the importance of being connected to people.”

Growing up in Haiku, coming from Maui, helps keep him grounded amidst all the fake lure of Hollywood. “That’s partially why I wanted to come home this weekend,” he said. “I come back and instantly feel my feet on the ground again.”

Taking a break, he said, “We haven’t fully finished the movie yet, and then I’ve got to go and do all the press for it. It can really be a whirlwind. It’s very easy to be swept up into the facade of Hollywood. When I have allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the glitz and glamour or the pressure, what I would call the false stories that revolve around this industry, I don’t function well and I am not putting out the best stories that I would like. What Maui has done for me is allowed me to have both my feet on the ground.”

He said, “just getting off the plane and being here is a very quick reminder of what is important in life. I feel extremely lucky to have spent the first 20 years of my life on this beautiful island. I grew up in the most beautiful place on earth, and what I’m doing in this work has some roots back to where I came from.”

Before Spider-Man, he directed the hit adventure movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” starring Tony Leung as Xu Wenwu and Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, which grossed over $432 million worldwide.

“It was a huge opportunity to be able to present the first Asian superhero to the world,” he explained. “But then to have that superhero be Asian-American and be a character who is kind of caught between two cultures is something that I really relate to. I had never really seen that captured on film in a way that felt like my life and the lives of my friends around me. It was really very fun to do that.”

A Shang-Chi sequel is in development, and Cretton will next direct “Naruto,” a live-action film adaptation of Masashi Kishimoto’s manga classic. Kishimoto reported Cretton would be “the perfect director for Naruto.”

Back on island, he is excited about the progress of the Hisako Film Lab, which he founded to provide hands-on filmmaking experience to Maui’s youth. “It’s kind of the main reason I came back,” he said. “We have a film lab that was named after my grandma, Hisako. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. I used to teach film production at a high school in San Diego, and my brother-in-law was also a teaching artist there. Then, when he moved back to Maui four years ago, it’s always been a dream to kind of create something for students here that I didn’t really have when I was growing up. So we started the Hisako Film Lab, which has been running for three years. One of our students, Emma (Jane Roy), went through the program and she interned with us on ‘Spider-Man,’ She was our intern in post-production. Already it’s been quite successful.”